Cold as Ice

Rather to my surprise I found several interesting stories in today's SCMP.  If this keeps happening I may have to start buying it again.

The first one, already been noted by Simon, is that Hong Kong has the coldest offices in the world:

A study by Polytechnic University showed that although 25 degrees was a "sensible temperature" from a comfort point of view, the temperature of 90 per cent of Hong Kong's offices averaged between 21 and 23 degrees Celsius. The average setting is lower than that in Australia, the US and developing countries, the researchers claimed.  The study showed that Hong Kong's offices could be as cool as 17 degrees Celsius.

Describing Hong Kong's "bizarre culture" of low air-con settings, Ms Ng criticised the common practice among offices in Hong Kong to "turn the air conditioning to a freezing temperature [so that workers must] dress in heavy clothes for the artificial cold weather 

Indeed, indeed. 

Then (as a follow-up to the story about the doctor who gave the wrong drugs to several - 150 to be exact - of his patients) we are told that there are "an insufficient number of pharmacies to cope with the added workload in the event doctors were forced to stop dispensing drugs".  Well, of course there are.  The health director seems to specialise in stating the totally obvious, because he went on to reassure us that doctors don't deliberately try to kill their patients:

"This is just a single incident that rarely happens ... It's very likely a human mistake," Mr Lam said.

Right.

The third story that caught my attention because of the opening paragraph:

A bar in Kowloon may face a fine of tens of thousand of dollars under an aggressive new crackdown on pubs and clubs screening soccer matches using an illegal satellite feed.

I'm not sure where the word "fine" comes from, but it fooled me into thinking that the police were involved.  Instead, quite correctly, this is a civil matter and nobody is going to get fined - but if the bar loses the case then they could have to pay damages.

[Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia] chief executive Simon Twiston Davies said: "Bars are continuing to do it because they want the screen sports on the cheap, and this is not acceptable.   "If I went into a bar in Hong Kong, ordered a beer and then gave them $5 for it, I'd be had up (arrested). That's the same thing as trying to get pay-TV on the cheap."

Mr Twiston Davies said although many bars had responded positively to warning letters, many others were flagrantly ignoring the warning. "I think there is a certain complacency out there," he said.

He said the association wanted to see Hong Kong retain its position as a broadcasting hub where intellectual property rights were respected, but that its status was compromised by widespread satellite signal piracy.

Blah, blah, blah.  A free subscription to ESPN for anyone who can explain how this 'piracy' could possibly have any impact on Hong Kong's status as a broadcasting hub (whatever one of those might be).  As for the "bottle of beer for $5" argument, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.  Unless I have missed something, no-one is paying Cable TV less than they asked.

Well, having said that these stories caught my attention, I sadly have to conclude that the way that the SCMP reported them has probably convinced me that I shouldn't spend $7 every day buying their stupid newspaper.

Sorry, by the way - I'm still very busy. 

Comments

[fumier]

This may be slightly off topic, but you haven't had a cheese post for a while: a friend of mine passed through Hong Kong the other day and delivered 34 pounds of cheese to me.